1980 Week: Hopscotch

          So dry that it’s barely a comedy, and yet so irreverent that it’s most definitely not a drama, the winning Hopscotch offers a wry depiction of Cold War-era spycraft. In fact, the most delightful aspect of the movie is the way it treats international espionage as a big business rife with the same sort of bureaucratic inefficiency, professional jealousy, and small-minded vendettas that plague every other industry. Walter Matthau, showcasing the loveable-scamp aspect of his screen persona instead of the rumpled-grouch aspect, plays Miles Kendig, a CIA operative whom we meet on the job in Europe. An old pro who sees all the angles and casually makes deals with his KGB counterpart, Yaskov (Herbert Lom), Kendig has become a relic from the era of gentleman spies. Returning to Washington, he’s belittled and demoted by his crude but politically connected superior, Myerson (Ned Beatty). The idea of taking a desk job doesn’t work for Kendig, however, so he discreetly shreds his personnel file, slips out of CIA headquarters, and returns to Europe so he can be with his on-again/off-again girlfriend, Isobel von Schonenberg (Glenda Jackson), and plot his playful revenge against Myerson.

          Kendig starts writing a tell-all book about his life as a secret agent, sending copies of early chapters to prominent figures in the global intelligence community. As intended, the book makes Kendig a wanted man, so he commences a merry chase around the globe with the goal of humiliating Myerson as utterly as possible. Employing arcane knowledge, fake passports, and old spy-community contacts, Kendig “hops” back and forth between various locations in America and Europe, leaving clues that mock Myerson and other agents for their inability to catch up with a seasoned veteran. Meanwhile, Kendig keeps sending chapters of the book, with new secrets revealed on each page and the threat of the explosive final chapter lingering over everyone involved.

          Deftly written by Bryan Forbes and Bryan Garfield (based on a novel by Garfield), Hopscotch is the sort of lighthearted romp that’s designed to generate perpetual amusement, rather than laugh-out-loud hilarity, so viewers expecting slapstick or verbal fireworks will be disappointed. Similarly, anyone hoping for a replay of the bickering-lovers sparks that Jackson and Matthau struck in House Calls (1978) is due for a letdown, since the actors play characters who are cheerfully conjoined from the beginning of the story to the end. Yet within these diminished expectations, Hopscotch provides a thoroughly pleasurable viewing experience. Director Ronald Neame shoots locations beautifully, the story provides innumerable twists stemming from Kendig’s incredible resourcefulness, and the acting is terrific. Beatty strikes the right balance between buffoonery and competence, Jackson comes across as clever and worldly, Lom is appealingly urbane, Matthau is appropriately rascally, and costar Sam Waterston (as Kendig’s protégé/pursuer) lends a charming quality of conflicted compassion.

Hopscotch: GROOVY

Asylum (1972)

          One in a series of anthology horror films generated by UK company Amicus Productions, Asylum boasts a solid pedigree: The picture was written by Robert Bloch, of Psycho fame, and directed by Hammer Films veteran Roy Ward Baker. The picture also has a solid cast, with Peter Cushing, Britt Ekland, Herbert Lom, Patrick Magee, Barry Morse, Barbara Parkins, Robert Powell, and the elegant Charlotte Rampling. Like most similar Amicus movies—and, for that matter, like most anthology pictures in general—it’s wildly uneven. On the plus side, the framing story is stronger than usual, and the overall presentation is terrific, thanks to glossy cinematography and solid production values. On the minus side, two of the stories are deeply silly, even by the standards of tongue-in-cheek UK horror. Asylum has its minor pleasures, but it’s not to be taken the least bit seriously.

         In the framing story, earnest young psychiatrist Dr. Martin (Powell) shows up to interview for a job at a mental institution. While speaking with his would-be superior, Dr. Rutherford (Magee), Martin is given a challenge—he must identify which of the asylum’s patients is a former doctor, driven insane by dealing with the institution’s lunatics. If Dr. Martin identifies the right patient, he gets the job. Each visit with a patient occasions a flashback vignette with a gruesome twist ending. In “Frozen Fear,” Ruth (Parkins) describes being attached by dismembered body parts that move of their own volition. In “The Weird Tailor,” Bruno (Morse) recalls how a mystery man (Cushing) hired him to construct a magical suit of clothes. In “Lucy Comes to Stay,” Barbara (Rampling) explains that she was framed for murder by Lucy (Ekland), who may or may not be imaginary. And in “Mannikins of Horror,” Dr. Byron (Lom) reveals his hobby of creating tiny robots bearing lifelike faces modeled after his acquaintances.

          The bits with the homicidal body parts and the violent robots (you knew they’d get bloodthirsty, didn’t you?) are unavoidably goofy, even though all of the actors give gung-ho performances. Conversely, “Lucy Comes to Stay” is fairly credible, but Ekland and Rampling provide more glamour than talent, so “Lucy Comes to Stay” gets tedious after a while. Still, Amicus had this sort of thing down to a science, and cramming five stories into 88 minutes ensures a relatively brisk pace. Further, Bloch provides more than enough cheap thrills, and Baker casts the whole cartoonish enterprise in a warm glow thanks to his dignified pictorial style. So, while Asylum may not be particularly frightening, at least it’s bloody and colorful and energetic.

Asylum: FUNKY

Count Dracula (1970)

The affection that horror fans of a certain vintage feel for Christopher Lee, the man who played Dracula in myriad offerings from Hammer Films, is such that even Lee’s lesser efforts with the horror genre are held in some esteem. Combine that with the admiration some people feel for the work of Spanish director Jesús Franco, a prolific purveyor of low-budget shockers, and you begin to understand why there’s a small but loyal following around Count Dracula. The behind-the-scenes story goes that Lee was tired of starring in repetitive Hammer movies about Bram Stoker’s most famous creation, so when Franco and co. approached Lee about starring in a “faithful” adaptation of Stoker’s original book, the actor saw an opportunity to do something more edifying than his usual fare. Unfortunately, good intentions only go so far. While Count Dracula hews more closely to Stoker’s storyline than most previous films, there’s a huge fundamental problem. Stoker’s book is written in the epistolary style, meaning that characters describe their emotions via diary entries and letters. Franco’s movie includes events without the accompanying nuances (there’s no voiceover), so the result is incredibly slow pacing. Characters walk around with flat expressions on their faces, speak in monotones, and react to startling sights with so little vigor that many scenes feel more like lighting tests with stand-ins than final footage with proper actors. Lee, whose reputation as a formidable screen villain is, ironically enough, predicated on the lurid excesses of his Hammer work, gives a genuinely boring performance here—glowering and stiff. Even costars Klaus Kinski (as Dracula’s mad accomplice, Renfield) and Herbert Lom (as the vampire’s rival, Van Helsing) deliver uncharacteristically drab performances. Clearly, there’s a good reason Hammer prioritized sensational thrills over loyalty to the source material when adapting Stoker.

Count Dracula: LAME

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971)

          Given Edgar Allan Poe’s towering status as a cultural influence and literary figure, it’s interesting to note how few good movies have derived from his work. Excepting director Roger Corman’s stylish cycle of Poe movies starring Vincent Price, released in the ’60s, most attempts to translate the author’s macabre style into cinema have been middling at best. One problem with such projects—the reckless impulse to improve on Poe’s storytelling—is evident throughout Murders in the Rue Morgue, a sluggish horror film that is only peripherally related to the short story of the same name. Director Gordon Hessler and his screenwriters concocted a murky narrative featuring a handful of elements from Poe’s tale, such as a murderous primate and two generations of female victims. Predictably, much was lost in translation—Murders in the Rue Morgue suffers from a confusing script, dull pacing, and repetitive tropes. The picture has great production values, and it boasts the presence of lively stars Herbert Lom and Jason Robards, but it’s a slog to watch.

          Set in early 20th-century Paris, Hessler’s movie concerns Cesar Charron (Robards), producer/star of a Grand Guignol-type theater company that, when the story begins, performs a show called Edgar Allan Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue at a theater called the Rue Morgue. (Clearly, “overkill” was the watchword during the writing process.) When several people in the theater company are killed, clues point to Rene Marot (Lom), a former member of the company long thought dead. Eventually, a connection is discovered between the gruesome death many years ago of Cesar’s first wife and the current bedevilment of her daughter, Madeline (Christine Kaufmann), who also happens to be Cesar’s current wife. There’s also some business involving a little person (Michael Dunn), who does creepy things like stalking Madeline, and a blustery but ineffectual police detective (Adolfo Celi).

          None of this makes much sense, especially since Hessler arbitrarily toggles between “present-day” scenes, dream sequences, and flashbacks; by the umpteenth time Hessler cuts to an ominous shot of a mysterious figure falling from the rafters of the theater, viewer fatigue is inevitable. Robards phones in his performance, but Dunn and Lom add florid villainy, while actresses including Kaufmann and Rosalind Elliot (who plays a doomed prostitute) furnish eye candy. Murders in the Rue Morgue includes some unconvincing gore (think waxy-looking severed heads), as well as a silly riff on Poe’s image of a primate running amok. In other words, the picture’s not without its lurid virtues—but the lack of a coherent storyline unquestionably relegates Murders in the Rue Morgue to the realm of misguided Poe movies.

Murders in the Rue Morgue: FUNKY

And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973)

          Proving once again that British production company Amicus was a poor cousin to its better-known competitor, Hammer Films, And Now the Screaming Starts! represents a failed attempt to emulate Hammer’s signature style of sexed-up Gothic horror. Although And Now the Screaming Starts! features the requisite components of heaving bosoms, lurid subject matter, and over-the-top gore—all wrapped up in posh costuming and production design—the movie is as silly as its title. UK starlet Stephanie Beacham stars as Catherine, a wide-eyed 18th-century lass who marries into the Fengriffen family unaware of a deadly curse that plagues the family’s estate. Soon after arriving in the estate’s gigantic main house, Catherine begins seeing visions of dismembered hands and of corpses with gouged-out eyes; she’s also terrified by a painting of her new husband’s long-dead grandfather, because the painting seems to watch her. Eventually, Catherine’s inquiries unlock a lengthy flashback explaining the sordid history of the estate, so the film shows the grandfather (Herbert Lom) heinously abusing a servant and his wife for psychosexual kicks; these misdeeds provoke the curse that plagues the grandfather’s bloodline. Alas, the manner in which the flashback ties into the “present day” storyline is highly unsatisfying.

          Furthermore, since Beacham is barely more than competent as an actress, she can’t generate enough emotional heat to sustain interest during the first hour of the movie, which is dull and repetitive. Most of the actors surrounding her are equally bland, delivering their lines with stiff formality. It’s worth noting that horror icon Peter Cushing has a small and inconsequential role, so his top billing is deceptive. Similarly, Lom is onscreen for less than 15 minutes. That said, he makes his brief appearance count, enlivening the movie with elegant sadism. Directed by UK-horror stalwart Roy Ward Baker, And Now the Screaming Starts! has the texture of a credible Gothic shocker, thanks to campy gore effects and shadowy sets, but the jolts are so clichéd that nothing quickens the pulse. Worse, the “twist” ending is undercut by an overabundance of exposition prior to the big reveal. Nonetheless, And Now the Screaming Starts! offers many things to please devoted fans of the genre that Hammer perfected, even though Amicus’ take on the genre is unquestionably second-rate. For instance, none could ever question Beacham’s ample qualifications for summoning the long power required to deliver on the movie’s title.

And Now the Screaming Starts!: FUNKY

The Return of the Pink Panther (1975) & The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976) & Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978)

          British comedian Peter Sellers first played nincompoop policeman Jacques Clouseau in The Pink Panther (1963), but really hit his groove with the sequel, A Shot in the Dark (1964), for which he and director Blake Edwards elevated Clouseau’s ineptitude to a giddy level of farcical perfection. So it’s disappointing to view The Return of the Pink Panther in close succession with its predecessors, because the 1975 reunion of Edwards and Sellers is a minor effort for both men. All the usual tropes are here (animated title sequence, smooth scoring by Henry Mancini, glamorous European locations), but the filmmaking is enervated. The jokes are moronic, repetitive, and telegraphed; the camerawork is flat except for an exciting heist at the beginning; and the storyline is a pointless rehash of the original 1963 movie, with Christopher Plummer blandly essaying a role originated by the debonair David Niven. As for Sellers, he seems bored, and there’s not nearly enough of Herbert Lom as Clouseau’s insane boss/nemesis, Dreyfus.
          The 1976 follow-up The Pink Panther Strikes Again is much better, though by this point Sellers’ characterization is becoming overly reliant on elaborate makeup and goofy costumes. The James Bond-ish plot is silly fun, with Dreyfus escaping from a mental institution and threatening global destruction with a super-powerful laser beam unless Clouseau is surrendered to him, and the movie benefits from its supporting players: Lom’s cheerful-maniac routine is delightful, and Lesley-Anne Down smolders as a Russian agent. Strikes Again is too long, but that’s true of all of Edwards’ Panther movies, and while comic inspiration is in short supply, some of the gags are terrific, like Clouseau’s attempt at dentistry.
          The series ran out of gas with Revenge of the Pink Panther, which relies on insipid disguises (Sellers dressed as a gargantuan mobster), stupid puns (a shopkeeper whose surname is Balls), and tedious plotting about a crime boss conspiring to kill Clouseau. Lom’s comic mojo is defused when his character is “cured,” Dyan Cannon is wasted in a decorative role, and series supporting player Burt Kwouk (Clouseau’s manservant Cato) gets stuck in a series of foolish slapstick gags. Even the usually reliable Mancini contributes lackluster work, from the disco-ish version of the main theme that plays over the opening credits to the corny vaudeville-style number that accompanies the Hong Kong-set climax.
          After Sellers died in 1980, Edwards pillaged outtakes from various Panther movies for a pair of awful ’80s sequels, and more recently Steve Martin took over the Clouseau role in a pair of critically drubbed comedies.

The Return of the Pink Panther: LAME

The Pink Panther Strikes Again: FUNKY

Revenge of the Pink Panther: LAME